The saga/history/thoughts of two gay partners and their 4-footed child picking up stakes in the US and immigrating to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Congressional Lying . . . .

This should come as no surprise to readers out there in Blogland.PerMcClatchy today:

White House interfered in climate testimony, ex-EPA official says

Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers

July 08, 2008

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the White House demanded that all mention of how global warming harms human health be cut from testimony to Congress last fall, a former Environmental Protection Agency official who had a key role on climate policy said Tuesday.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., charged that the new information from the former official showed that the White House and Cheney were covering up the dangers of global warming in an attempt to block the EPA from taking action.

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The former EPA official, Jason Burnett, said in a letter to Boxer dated Sunday that the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Cheney's office wanted to cut any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change from testimony to Congress last October by Julie Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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"We now know that this censorship was not haphazard. It was part of a master plan" meant to ensure that the EPA's response to a Supreme Court decision that found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants "would be as weak as possible," Boxer charged.

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In his letter, Burnett said that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had asked the staff to draft a provisional finding that greenhouse gases do endanger public welfare. Burnett sent the report by e-mail, but the White House has refused to open it. As a result, the finding isn't available to the public.

Boxer said Johnson should release the e-mailed finding and all other documents related to the EPA's conclusions about the dangers of global warming. The agency also should indicate what rules it will impose to reduce the emissions of heat-trapping gases, she said.

"If Mr. Johnson refuses to do these things I'm asking him to do, if he doesn't have the strength to do them, he should resign," Boxer said.

Based on how well the dems are standing up to the lame-duck, unpopular, incompetent jerk occupying the Oval Office on the FISA debacle, hopes of them acting on this bit of news are nil.

One would think that with a majority in both houses of Congress they might be a little more responsive to the will of the people and the rule of law. Whatever happened to three equal branches of government?